At Teach One Reach One Ministries, we primarily serve those ministering to children and teens. It’s just assumed that the adults who teach these classes have more Bible knowledge, life experience and wisdom than their young students. Yet this can create an underlying lack of humility that is detrimental to the effectiveness of your Bible class.
Why? Here are some of the signs a lack of humility may be causing problems in a Bible class for children or teens. How many of these describe your behavior and attitudes?
- Do you think you have already learned everything you need to know from the Bible?
- Do you regularly think of your Bible students as ignorant or “stupid”?
- When your students try to share an insight or something they have learned with you, do you ignore them or dismiss their thoughts?
- Do you avoid chatting with your students or spending time with them outside of class, because you don’t want to hear all of their stories about school, friends, etc.?
- Do you regularly make negative assumptions about your students or their parents without taking the time to really get to know them well?
- Do you avoid attending teacher training activities and seminars?
- Do you avoid reading blog posts or articles designed to improve classroom teaching effectiveness?
- Do you brush off criticism and ignore it… even if it is constructive?
- Do you insist on doing things “your way”, even when you have learned it may not be in the best interest of your Bible students?
- Have you basically stopped reading the Bible, either to prepare to teach or for your own personal spiritual growth and health?
- Do you just assume the theological principles in the curriculum are true, without comparing them to scripture?
- Do you refuse to take the extra time to develop questions or activities that will help your students learn better than the ones provided in the curriculum you use?
- Have you stopped praying for God to give you the right words to reach your students for Him?
- Are you never wrong or do you rarely feel the need to apologize for anything?
- Are you usually the smartest person in the room?
Humility is rare in our world, but it is commanded by God and essential to be an effective Bible class teacher. It is why they say that the best teachers are also the best learners.